Asura Path
The was the fifth of Nagato's Six Paths of Pain to be shown. It was destroyed twice during the invasion of Pain, first by Kakashi's Lightning Blade and then for a second time by Naruto's Rasengan. Appearance When it was alive, the Asura path belonged to a tall, bald man with an unusual body shape, possessing a very thick neck, no ears and a large jaw. In the anime, the Asura path was shown to be a wandering puppeteer with insight to the world. He also had part of his face obscured by a rice hat in the anime, possibly hiding a headband that had not been shown in the manga, as Jiraiya quickly discovered that he was a ninja. The Asura path's unnamed puppet was made to look like a baby, and was capable of emitting infantile cries. The Asura path, like all of the Six Paths, possessed Nagato's Rinnegan eyes. It was the only body to not have orange hair, simply because it had no hair at all. It had a vertical ring piercing on its nose, six spike studs all around its head, three studs on the top and bottom of each of its six arms, an enormous cylindrical stud on its chin, and two vertical studs on each of its upper cheeks. The body had three predefined faces which it could switch to: happy (the most common), angry, and neutral. Abilities This body was very different from all other paths, being more like an android, as it had a number of body alterations. It was shown to have robotic inner workings, possessing six arms and a folded, serrated blade-like tail. It could fire one of its left forearms off as a long-range projectile, and could pull out his arms to reveal and fire a cluster of segmented missiles at its targets. It could quickly propel itself forward with a burst of chakra from its boots, and could protract multiple blades and a drill from one of its arms in battle. Also, it could open up the crown of its head to release a titanic shockwave that was capable of destroying numerous buildings at once. Its physical raw power was enough to rip Jiraiya's arm off, and then crush his throat with basic Taijutsu moves. All of these abilities befitted the "warring demon" name that the Asura path held, whilst giving it a considerably higher degree of versatility than the other paths had (aside from the Deva Path). Despite being used frequently and providing heavy firepower, the Asura path was readily sacrificed to protect the even more powerful Deva Path, acting as a human shield against Kakashi's Lightning Blade. Influences In Buddhism, the Asura path is the realm of the demi-divine warring demons. They are sent to this plane because of actions based on jealousy, struggle, combat or rationalization of the world. Following a common depiction of Asura, this path has six arms and three faces, each of which display a different emotion. Trivia *The Asura Path has a few similarities to fellow Akatsuki member Sasori. He, too, was a puppeteer ninja (although this was only shown in the anime), whose body was heavily altered into what appears to have been a puppet form. Because of this, he was similarly-resilient to damage, being able to take a Lightning Blade from Kakashi after already having been damaged numerous times, and still live to later fire a missile at Chōji. Unlike Sasori, however, the Asura Path cannot pull himself back together when smashed apart, and instead must rely on the Outer Path to do so.